Irrational Still Planning ‘BioShock’ Movie, Confirms Ken Levine

After losing the involvement of two directors, amid numerous delays and budget constraints, Irrational Games creative director Ken Levine still hasn’t abandoned hope that one day, just one day, the often-talked-about, never-put-in-production BioShock movie will find its way on the road to filmdom.

It was little more than than a month ago, in March, that then-proposed director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 Weeks Later) walked out on the project – the second to do so after Pirates of the Caribbean and The Ring director Gore Verbinski. Many assumed it would be the final nail in an already heavily hammered coffin, but a recent interview by Levine might offer fans a glimmer of hope.

Speaking to Edge Magazine, Levine admitted that the collaboration with Verbinski didn’t go as planned, but it would merely take the right circumstances to get the project up and running:

“The thing with Gore [Verbinski] didn’t work out, but there’s no such thing as ‘it’s finished’ when it comes to making a movie out of something.

“It’s always about the stars aligning. We’re still focusing on it, but it hasn’t consumed us so much.”

Obviously, Irrational’s main focus Levine was alluding to lies with the release of BioShock: Infinite – due out on October 16th; it’d be foolish to shift priorities now in what are surely the critical final stages of the game’s production.

That being said, the fact that the Time 100 nominee still has the film in the back of mind is commendable.

The reason we’re at this point (and Fresnadillo mentioned it on his way out the door) is because Levine, Take-Two, and Verbinski opted to push for a big-budget-visuals, R-rated production faithful to the canon that no studio would commit to financing – then or now. In a sense, that insistence epitomizes the current state of video games as silver-screen prospects: No longer do the creators of artistically profound and culturally resonant IPs feel subservient to Hollywood film producers and studio executives so as to hand over the keys to a car many of them couldn’t drive straight on a runway (see: Prince of Persia, Doom, Max Payne). There might have been a time when Uwe Boll was on speed dial, but those days seem to have steadily died out with flop after flop after Razzie Award.

For the BioShock film to see the light of day, it will likely need to see an agreement between Levine – he and his grand ambitions – and a director/film studio willing to go all in. In other words, it could be a while – but it would greatly help in assuring the film is done right.

Ranters, what do you think of the BioShock film and its perpetual limbo? Out of similar stalled video-game movie adaptations like Assassin’s Creed, Halo, and Gears of War, which one would you want to see first?